FeedDemon - Exporting

So I found that exporting files is a whole lot simpler then importing them within FeedDemon. There are far less options for one thing. I guess that is because there is not much that you need to do in order export the folders and feeds.

When you select Export from the File menu (see more about the file menu here) you will launch the export window. It is a very simple window with a list of all of your folders or subscriptions. You can select the folders that that you want to export from the list. Similarly to importing, you can also use the ‘All’ button at the top right. Or if you want to select just a couple of files you can select the ‘none’ button. The default is to have all of the folders selected when you enter the tool.

Below the folder list you will see “Export as” followed by a dropdown box. You will have the option to export as an OPML or an APML. OPML stands for Outline Processor Mark-up Language and this is just an outline of hierarchical, ordered lists of arbitrary elements (thank you Wikipedia). So it is a list of your feeds and the folders (or hierarchy) that you have developed within FeedDemon APML is Attention Profiling Mark-up Language and this is basically an export of all of the attention data that FeedDemon has collected on each of your feeds as well as possibly your browser history. This lets you move all of your user history along with your feeds.

Once you have made your choice simply click OK. The next window that will open is your windows file manager. Simply identify where you want the file to reside and name it. Then click save and the window closes. You will now be looking at FeedDemon again. The file is now saved on your hard drive and you can move it to another computer or import it into another tool.

Next time we will check out the ‘Views’ available in FeedDemon.

FeedDemon – Importing

Since today’s post is about Importing it probably should have been one of the first post. However in this particular series it seems to fit best as one of the follow up postings.

Anyway Importing feeds can serve as a valuable tool. When you first setup FeedDemon you can use the import function to pull in all of your feeds. This is especially helpful if you are transferring from an online service or if you are moving from a different desktop application. The first step in Importing is to activate the Import Wizard. In order to do this simply click on File, and then import feeds which is the second option following Subscribe (see FeedDemon-File Menu from May 10, 2009 for more info). Once the Wizard opens you will have 3 options.

The first option for importing is to Import Recommended Feeds. When you select this item from the list and click next, the new window will have a list of folders that are separated by topic, such as Business, Gossip, Games, Science, etc. You will also notice that there are two buttons on the top right, one to select ‘All’ and one to select ‘none’. The folders that will be in the center box allow you to select the whole folder or you can expand each folder to see the selection of feeds in each folder. You can also select feed by feed which ones you want to add. There is also a button on the bottom right that launches a new window that provides a preview of the feed that you have selected in the folder list. After you select the feeds that you want to add click next. The following window allows you to determine which folder you want to put your new feeds. There are two options here as well. You can either recreate the folder structure from the previous wizard window in your folder tree or you can put all of the posts that you selected into one (and only one) of your existing folders. Once you choose simply pick next and you will come to the finish screen. When you select Finish your new feeds will be added to your folder tree (aka Subscriptions).

The next option is to import your feeds from an OPML file. Basically this is a file on your hard drive that you have exported from another program or service. You will need to click on the second radio button to activate this option. Then if you know the location of the file on your computer you can type in the path, otherwise select the folder at the end of the box (right side). This is the browse button and you can search for the file in your computer. Once you find it click open. Then click next. The new screen will present you with a list of all the folders and feeds available in the file. You can select which folders and feeds that you would like to added. You will also notices the buttons ‘All’ and ‘None’ on the top right. Like before these will select all or remove all the selections that you have made. When you click next you will find the Destination folder screen again. You can either add all the new feeds to a single existing folder or you can maintain the folder structure that is present in the OPML file. When you have chosen the option you want to use, click Next which will bring up the Finish screen. Click finish and FeedDemon will load all of your newly imported feeds and create any folders that you told it to create.

The last option to import feeds is to import from another service directly. This would be like importing from Bloglines or RSS Bandit. When you select a service (like Bloglines) from the drop down list and click Next, FeedDemon will ask you for the login and password. Then it will automatically go out and retrieve all of your feeds from that service. As with the other importing options you can choose which feeds you want to import. Once you have chosen the feeds simply click next. Also as before you will be asked which folder you want to put these feeds in or if you want to import the folders that were present in the source, in this case Bloglines. Once you have chosen where they should go simply click Next and then Finish. The new feed will be added to your list in the location that you specified.

Next time we will look at Exporting your feeds for use in another tool or better yet on another computer.

FeedDemon – Feed Properties

As I said last time there were several aspects of FeedDemon that I indicated I would cover at a later date. This time we will look at the next item on the list which is Feed Properties.

So the first thing that you have to do is select one of the feeds from your folder tree or subscription list. Then there are two ways to get to the Feed Properties. The first is through the Edit Menu at the top left of the window. After clicking on Edit, select Feed Properties from the drop down list. The second is to right click on the feed that you want to see the properties for and then select Feed Properties from the list. Either of these options will bring you to the same place. They will open the a new window for that individual feed’s properties.

When the new window opens you will notice that there are four tabs across the top. The first one is the General tab. As the name suggests this tab will provide the ‘General’ information about the feed. This information includes the title that you named the feed when you setup the subscription. This is fully customizable and allows you to change it to what ever name you desire. The next information is the actual feed url, so the web address for where the posts that you receive as a part of this feed come from. This is followed by the homepage for the source of the feed. For instance if you have MSNBC top stories as a feed then the Homepage would be http://www.msnbc.msn.com/. There are also 4 options found at the bottom of the window. Each of these have check boxes to indicate if they are enabled or not (fyi - checked means enabled). The first Enables the feed. If you disable (or uncheck) this option you will no longer receive updates to that feed. The next turns on the analytical tools capabilities to include this feed in the statistics. The next one makes it so that this feed is excluded from all watches. Basically what that means is that the feeds that are in your keyword, or specialized watches will not include any feeds that you have subscribed to and enabled this function for. The last one includes this feed in your desktop alerts so that you will be notified based on the settings that you have setup in the desktop alert settings, when new items arrive.

The next tab is for updating. In this tab you will find the ability to tell FeedDemon how many posts (or items) to keep in the feed folder for this particular feed. The second part of this tab will be enabled if you choose not to sync this feed with NewsGator Online. This will allow you to set the frequency (how often) with which FeedDemon checks the feed for new items. If you are sync-ing with NewsGator Online then it will be automatic. This tab is followed by the tab for the feed’s statistics. Again if you selected or enabled the Collect Attention Data in the General tab then FeedDemon will collect data on how often you interact with this particular feed. You can use the information to make decisions on which feeds to keep and which to eliminate. This tab will include information about things like the number of posts, the number of unread posts, how many times you have visited this feed, how many times you have flagged or emailed it, etc.

The last tab is the Advanced tab. This tab includes several options for automating the feed. The first option sets up the feed to automatically download enclosures (also known as podcasts). The next item will allow you to unsubscribe automatically from a feed if it does not update very often. You can set it to drop any feeds that have not updated (or sent out any feeds) in that last however many days. The number of days is up to you and can be set to any number up to 999. When you select this option FeedDemon will confirm that this is exactly what you want to do with a pop up window. It does this because it could eliminate the feed without any warning.

You can also set the feed up to ignore any posts that are older then a certain number of days. The default is 7 but you can make it higher or lower. This is followed by the prefetch function. You can activate this function for the feed from here. You can also set up the options associated with prefetch. The last options at the bottom allow you to choose a different Newspaper style for each feed. So if you want to have a different view for all your feeds or just a feed you can select if from here. To the left of the Newspaper Style are two buttons. The first will validate the feed through a feed validation service to ensure that is a live feed and is working properly. It will open your default web browser to complete the task. The last option is to view the source. This option actually opens up the source code for the feed into notepad (or your default text editor).

Next time I will continue this series with a look at Importing and Exporting from FeedDemon.

FeedDemon – Feed Auto Discovery

Along the way as I explored FeedDemon and developed the user guide pages I said that I would provide more information on some of the topics in later posts.  The Auto Discovery tool is one of those topics that I saved for later. 

The Auto Discover is an RSS icon that has been turned into a button on the Reading Pane Tool Bar.  As I stated in the post about the Reading Pane Tools it is an optional button that you can activate as a part of the toolbar (for more info see FeedDeomon – Reading Pane Tools, from May 2,2009).  This is one of those Icon/button(s) that requires you to be in a specific area of FeedDemon and performing a certain task before it will be an active tool.  What I mean is that this icon will not be active all the time.  There are specific activities that you will have to engage in before it will be active.

It is not as difficult as it sounds.  When you are in FeedDemon and you simply have to look at post in the tabbed browsing view (for more info see FeedDemon-Tabbed Browsing, from April 23, 2009).  If a feed is available on that page then the icon will activate.  If there are no feeds available then it will not   activate.

You have two options once it activates; first you can select the small down arrow next to the RSS icon which allows you to see a list of the available feeds. When you select the feed that you want to add the Subscribe Wizard will open with that feed in the feed address loaded in the feed entry field.  The second option takes you straight to the Subscribe Wizard and will have the first feed listed in the feed entry field.  Then it will follow the normal steps for adding a subscriptions (see FeedDemon – Adding Subscriptions from June 22, 2009 for more info).  Through the subscription process you can identify which folder you want it to be located.  Once you complete the process the new feed will be available with the latest feeds. 

Next time we will look at the next topic that I said I would review at a later date: Feed Properties.

FeedDemon – Adding Subscriptions

So in reviewing my previous posts to see if I missed anything, I realized that I never went over how to add a subscription. This is a relatively easy process and there are a couple of ways to do it.

The first is with the Subscribe button that is at the top of the the Folder List, also known as the Subscriptions section. You can click the button to launch the add screen, or if you click on the down arrow this button becomes a drop down list with several options to help you with adding subscriptions. The first option is a new subscription. When you select this option a new window will launch. There are several ways that you can add a feed with this window. You can simply put in the address (url) of the feed, or just the address (url) of the website that you want the feed to come from or even just a keyword that you are looking for information on and FeedDemon will find feeds that relate.

If you are just adding the address of the feed it is pretty simple. Enter the address in the blank. You can check to make sure you have the right one by clicking the preview button at the bottom right. This will open the feed into another window and you can see the most current posts. If you are satisfied just close this window and select next on the previous one. Then it will ask you which folder you prefer to house your new subscription. Once you select the folder you want it in, select next. You will come to the finish window. From here you can either change the settings of the new feed or just Finish.

If you decided to simply put the main address for the website that you want to add the feeds from FeedDemon will seek that website and identify the top feed available. So if you are adding the Huffington Post, it will select the “All Feeds”, if you are adding MSNBC it will add the “Top Stories” feed. But after that it will basically work the same way by asking you which folder to put it in and then finish.

The keyword search can be interesting. In the blank enter the word that you want to search on, such as snowboarding, and click next. The next window will ask you what search tool to use when searching. These include MSN Search, Technorati and Delicious to name a few. Once you select the search tool you have to select the “Find” button. If you just select next the subscribe tool will take you to the next screen and ask you what folder to put the search tool webpage in. So once you select “Find” the keyword search screen will change from a list of search tools to a list of possible feeds that you can select from. Once you have selected the feed, click next. FeedDemon will ask which folder to put the new subscription in. After picking the folder select next and you will be at the “Finish” screen. Select Finish and your new feed should be available in the folder that you placed it in.

This brings me to the Find New Feeds option. This works very similar to the Keyword search outlined above. The only real difference that I noticed is that it did not ask which tool to search with. When I clicked next it still returned a list for me to choose from and then asked which folder to put it in. This is followed but the option to add a new clippings folder. When you select this option a new window opens. There is a space for you to add the name of the folder that you are adding. You can also make this new folder the default clippings folder so it will be the first option when you are adding a post to your clippings. You can have it synchronize with NewsGator Online so that you can access it at any time. You can also set the folder up to be shared as an RSS Feed. When you select Ok it will add the new Clippings folder to the list.

The next option allows you to setup a new Watch. This is basically a keyword search. Once you enter the watch, FeedDemon will scour the net looking for posts that relate to your search criteria. The last item will import feeds. This is a tool that will help you import from an OPML file and setup your folders.

Next time I will get into the Watches, Imports and possibly the ability to send an RSS from your clipping folder.

FeedDemon – Customize the Show News Items Toolbar

It comes as no surprise that the FeedDemon team has made the toolbar over the Show News Items column fully customizable. As with the other toolbars within FeedDemon there are several options for icons, buttons and boxes to help shape and mold your user experience to best fit your needs.

The default toolbar comes with the standard tools and is very minimalist. In order to start customizing you have to go to the end at the right side and select the small arrow pointing down. This will open the Add/Remove Buttons function. When you select this button a drop down list will appear with all of the available tools that you can add. The tools with checkmarks are those that are already available in the toolbar. You will activate or deactivate the tools by clicking them to add or remove the checkmarks.

There are a number of tools available from the list. The first one is Columns. When activated this will give you another drop down list that lets you manipulate the columns within the Show News Items Section. You can chose the columns that have the most benefit for you by selecting them from the list. These options include (but are certainly not limited to) Category, Source, Author, Date, Title, etc. It is difficult to have all of the columns selected simply due to scarcity of available real estate on the screen, but that is ok because there is some overlap in what information these columns represent.

The next item is Group by. This also has a drop down list and will help you to customize the view within the Show News Items section. Well not really the view, more like how the posts are sorted within the list. For instance if you select Received from the list of options then the posts will reorganize with the most recent on top. Similarly if you select Read from the list the posts will reorganize with the unread items on top. The next item is like a red circle with a line through it above over an open envelop. This icon allows you to hide (or unhide) all of the read items. The one thing that I did not like about this function is it does not hide the items as you read them. So once you read a post and move the next item the previous, read item, stays in the list. The next icon is a closed envelope with a magnifying glass. This will let you select whether the item descriptions, or post summaries, are shown with the headline in the Show News Items List. If you deactivate it then the list will condense to a simple list of headlines.

The next three icons have to do with marking the news item. The first is an open envelope that allows you to mark a news item as read. The second is a closed envelope and it allows you to mark an item as unread. The list item in this section is a red flag. Basically this allows you to mark a post with a flag. This allows you to easily mark a post so you can review it later or help you remember the posts that you want to do something with or save.

The next few icons help you to navigate between the posts. Each one looks like a sheet of paper, the differentiator is either a blue or a red arrow and which direction it points. The first one has a blue arrow pointing left and moves you to the previous news item. Similarly the next icon has a blue arrow pointing right and it moves you to the next news item. The next two have the red arrows, with the one pointing left taking you to the previous unread item in the list and the one pointing right taking you to the next unread item.

The next two tools were very interesting to me. It turns out that you can have FeedDemon read each post to you. When you select a post the first icon a red ball with a white arrow pointing right activates. If you select this icon, FeedDemon reads description associated with each post. It sounds a bit like Stephen Hawking. The next icon, the read ball with a white square is the stop button so you can stop it at any time.

The last tool is like a search box but it is really more like a keyword filter. So if there is a topic that you want to see more about, like Obama for instance, simply type it into the filter box and the list will resort to just show items on that topic. Once you enter a keyword into this box it will store it until you select [Clear this list]. At that point it will erase of of the keywords that you have entered.

That takes care of all of the buttons and tools available to help you customize your experience with the Show News Items section. There is one more thing about this toolbar that was surprising to me. In contrast to the other toolbars within FeedDemon when you select all of the tool from the list, this toolbar will wrap itself so that you can see all of the tools. It will also continue to wrap if you make the Show News Item section smaller. So it will take up two lines or three or however many are required to support the size of the section and the number of tools you have select. I found this to be a great feature and wish that it was part of the functionality for all of the sections.

FeedDemon – Show News Items

As we discussed in the previous post about Customizing the Reading Pane toolbar, the Show News Items basically gives FeedDemon more of an email feel. To activate the Show News Items function you can simply select the icon once you have activated it to the Reading Pane toolbar. Keep in mind that this icon will be active when you have a feed selected in the folder tree. Another way to activate it is through the View Menu. As we talked about in a previous post, you can select it from the menu list.

Once you have selected the Show News Items a new list will appear in FeedDemon. It will appear between the folder list and the reading pane and will look a lot like an email list, like in Outlook or Thunderbird. The list will contain all of the posts from within the folder that you have selected in the folder tree. The unread items are easily distinguishable because they are bolded in the list. Once you move to the next item the previous will automatically move to read.

So this has some obvious pros and cons. The first thing that could be either a pro or a con is that it takes up space on the FeedDemon window. Since screen space can be a premium activating this can be a con in that there is less space available to show the posts when you select one and go to its website. There are ways around this though because you can easily go back to the View Menu and remove the selection that shows your subscriptions (aka: the folder tree). This makes the Show News Items the far left column and frees up some real estate so you can see the web pages without having to scroll.

So the way that Show News Items list interacts with the reading pane for me started out as a con, but then became a pro. At first when you are using the list and scrolling through the new posts, the reading pane provides the regular reading pane Newspaper view just with one Headline at a time. When I began using it, I really did not see this as a pro for FeedDemon, however as I began to use it more I found that once you select one of the posts the Reading Pane view will show the post’s website. Now since the web page view is activated, when you scroll through the list the Reading Pane shows the web page for each post. Once I figured this out, it became a pro for me. Especially when scrolling through posts that are not lengthy or include lots of photos.

Next time I will go over how to customize the toolbar, because as with everything in FeedDemon, you can make it your own.

FeedDemon – Folder List Tool Bar

Today we will look at the options in the toolbar above the folder list. Similar to the capabilities that were built into the reading pane tool bar for customization, the Folder List Tool bar is also fully customizable.

When you are looking at your tool bar simply click the down arrow at the far right end. This will open the add buttons option. When you select this a new list of buttons will drop down allowing you to pick which buttons you like best. The buttons are activated and visible on the tool bar when there is a check mark next to them. The defaults are Subscribe, Views and Update all Feeds. For simplicity sake lets take a look at the functionality available from top to bottom.

The first button is subscribe and it has a drop down list with additional options. I will cover how to add subscriptions in a future post, but the options here include subscribe, find new feeds, new clippings folder, new watch and import feeds. The next button is Views which allows you to change how you see the folder tree. It also has a drop down list of options. The default is folder view, but you can change it to show just folders with unread items, or to show your feeds, or just feeds with unread items, just flagged items or based on a keyword search.

The next three buttons deal with marking as read. The first which looks like an envelope behind a sphere will mark just the feed as read. The next button, which looks like and envelope behind one folder, will mark the selected folder as read. The last button of this section is an envelope with multiple folders in front of it. This one marks all the feeds (and folders) as read.

The next four icons are a little bit confusing because they are all spheres and all look the same. There are minor differences that can help you tell them apart though. The first two are to move to the previous feed and to the next feed respectively. They have blue triangles at the bottom, integrated into the spheres. The sphere for the previous button has the triangle on the left side and the next button it is on the right side. The next two spheres are basically the same with the exception that they take you to either the previous unread item or the next unread item. The buttons are slightly different in that the triangles are now red instead of blue. As with before the Previous has the triangle on the left and the Next has the triangle on the right.

The spheres are followed by a page with a blue lightening bolt through it. This is the button that will take you to the next page. So if you are looking at a page and you select this button you will either go to the following page within the feed that you are looking at or you will move to the first page in the next feed. The last two buttons are basically different colored recycle buttons. The first one is blue and it will get updates for the folder that you have highlighted in your folder tree. This will only be active when you are in folder view. The last button is a redish-orange and will look for updates to all of your feeds.

So now that we know what all of the buttons do, we can add them into our toolbar. One drawback that I notice is that there are so many of them that to get them to all appear you have to expand your folder list to right which decreases the size of your reading pane. That being said you probably will find that there are some that you do not use and will probably remove from view anyway. I definitely found that there were some buttons that I did not use and ended up with just a few once I got used to using certain ones.

Next time I will look at the Show News Items function.